This fascinating thread about a ‘mistake’ on a child’s poster of the solar system is today’s very best thing
Self-confessed ‘nerdy writer type’ and Twitter user Latif Nasser noticed a puzzling detail on his baby son’s poster of the solar system.
The resulting Twitter thread is absolutely fascinating and testament to Latif’s powers of sleuthing. It’s full of great twists and turns and we’ve learned a lot of interesting stuff along the way. The thread, as you’d expect, went hugely viral.
Anyway, here’s the full tale in the author’s own marvellous words.
1.
Last January, I noticed something peculiar in my 2yo’s bedroom that – after a year of obsessive reporting – led me to a profound cosmic revelation about what’s even possible in our universe. A . pic.twitter.com/pHFStIdawh
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
2.
So about a year ago, I was putting my little guy to bed in his crib and I noticed a strange detail on the solar system poster up on his wall … pic.twitter.com/FdtKy7PPCb
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
3.
Venus had a moon called Zoozve. Huh, I thought. Never heard of that. pic.twitter.com/3reaeMB5WQ
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
4.
Put the kid to bed, went back to my room and googled “Does Venus have a moon?” First hit was from NASA: “Venus has no moons.” Weird. pic.twitter.com/NszrmfSioj
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
5.
Then I googled “Zoozve” and got no results, literally zero results in English. Only results were in Czech and they were about zoos. Not what I was looking for. pic.twitter.com/cCioniuTzc
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
6.
I called a friend (@lizlandau) who has worked with NASA for a decade and she confirmed: Venus is completely moonless. And she had definitely never heard of Zoozve. pic.twitter.com/zflAUiEBq9
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
7.
This started to bug me: why make up a moon on a kids’ poster? And why call it Zoozve?! (Best guess: it was a prank and Zoozve was the illustrator’s dog’s name.) pic.twitter.com/jLm3UsSKjZ
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
8.
So I called the illustrator, a Brit named Alex Foster. (He does have a dog, but it’s named Winnie.) He didn’t know much about astronomy but he swore he didn’t make it up. He said he found it on a big list of all the moons online. I believed him, but couldn’t find the list. pic.twitter.com/kwCWWwBq0t
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
9.
Around that time, I got a text from Liz at NASA: “Wait Latif I think I figured it out!!!” pic.twitter.com/JjSgrV6VCQ
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
10.
It wasn’t ZOOZVE, it was 2002-VE, which is an actual object near Venus. The illustrator Alex confirmed that he probably misread his own writing. Aha! 2002VE! Okay so what IS 2002VE?? pic.twitter.com/atvCGTDCAw
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
11.
2002-VE68 (its technical designation) is a giant rock. Imagine a gray pockmarked potato the size of the Eiffel Tower. (We don’t have pics of it, but this one is similar.)
But the weirder and harder question: is Zoozve (gonna just keep calling it Zoozve) a moon of Venus or not? pic.twitter.com/lXouqvlpxK
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
12.
So I tracked down the person who discovered it:
Brian Skiff at Lowell Observatory in Arizona.He has actually discovered so many asteroids that when I talked to him, he had no idea what I was talking about, genuinely didn’t remember this one. pic.twitter.com/MhVfkcZq6d
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
13.
He said that he found it as part of the LONEOS project, an industrial-scale asteroid scavenger hunt that Congress funded during the 90s/00s when everyone was obsessed with what would happen if one hit earth. Sometimes they discovered hundreds of asteroids in a single night. pic.twitter.com/vTyugk9kiB
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024
14.
Once Skiff realized Zoozve wasn’t a threat, he stopped tracking it. BUT I found 2 astronomers who kept looking: Seppo Mikkola in Finland & Paul Wiegert in Canada.
They told me that Zoozve is NOT a moon of Venus. But it’s also NOT NOT a moon of Venus. It’s both and neither. WTH? pic.twitter.com/TfJy0MoVVV
— Latif Nasser (@latifnasser) January 26, 2024